cant print from IE/chrome and no pop up save windows

Hi all - so I am using vista home premium 64 bit.

I am having a strange problem:
When I try to print though firefox, the select printer window comes up and works fine. However, when I try to print though IE 8 or Chrome, a box pops up and says that the operation has failed. This is happening immediately after I click File --> Print, before I even see the print window with different printers, etc. I have all updates installed and using the latest version of chrome. What could this be?

Also I feel like this other problenm could be part of it. I cannot get any external 'path' windows to show up. When I try to add an attachment in gmail, the window to choose that attachment never comes. This happens in IE, firefox, and chrome. This also happens for example when running the CCleaner registry scanner and trying to save the backup of the registry, nothing comes up asking where to save, therfore I can't save it. This happens in everything (trying to upload pictures, etc.). The window I am speaking of is the Vista one that comes up when deciding where to save something or where to open something from.